Opposition accuses Andrews government of ‘corruption and theft’

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has accused the Victorian government of corruption and theft following revelations Premier Daniel Andrews was secretly grilled by the state’s anti-corruption watchdog.

Guy said the premier had “presided over a culture of corruption” and could not be trusted to fix a Labor Party culture that the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission found was rotten and encouraged the serious misuse of public resources.

“How can you trust Daniel Andrews to fix our state when the corruption watchdog has found Labor is rotten to the core?” he said.

“He should stand down. He has presided over a culture of corruption. He cannot be trusted to fix this mess.”

Andrews repeatedly refused to answer questions on Thursday morning over an Age report that IBAC had examined him in private in connection with Operation Watts, a two-year probe examining Labor MPs and ministers misusing public funds for factional purposes.

This masthead has published details of a draft report detailing the interim findings which reveal Andrews was among senior Labor figures to privately concede “significant cultural reform is required within the ALP” to rid the party of a culture that encouraged the misuse of public funds, nepotism and other wrongdoing.

Daniel Andrews was pressed about the IBAC probe into the Victorian Labor Party at a press conference on Thursday morning.Credit: David Crosling

IBAC interviewed 26 witnesses, including the premier, in private and seven witnesses in public hearings. It concluded in its draft report that cultural failings within Victorian Labor were systemic and had been condoned or even encouraged by party leaders for many years.

“This process is not finished. When it’s finished, then we’ll be able to talk about it,” Andrews said.

“Until then, it is not appropriate to do that, and that’s why I will not speak to these issues in the broad, general or specific, until the final report is handed down.”

On Thursday, former Labor minister Adem Somyurek posted on social media querying why the premier had not been examined publicly, and attacked IBAC.

Adem Somyurek appears as a witness at the Operation Watts IBAC inquiry last year. 

“Dan knows a lot about branch stacking and SL [Socialist Left] operatives organising the SL from MPs including ministers’ offices,” Somyurek tweeted. “The threshold question is did IBAC investigate Dan’s faction?

“IBAC has leaked throughout the two-year process, today’s leak is IBAC sticking d [sic] middle finger up at its own legislation which seeks to guarantee natural justice.

“IBAC’s drop of its report before those mentioned in report have a chance to respond is a denial of procedural fairness.”

The anti-corruption agency tends to hold a public hearing only if it has strong evidence of alleged wrongdoing. There has not been any credible evidence to date of Andrews abusing public funds for factional or party political purposes.

The premier on Thursday morning.Credit: Joe Armao

Guy said the Coalition’s soon-to-be-released integrity policy would include additional funding for Victoria’s probity bodies, an issue IBAC has highlighted in the past.

“We’ve got an integrity policy that will come out later in the year. What we’ll do is certainly beef up the resources of the ombudsman, the auditor-general, the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission; three bodies that have all raised significant concerns about the way this government operates,” Guy told 3AW.

“It’s corruption, it is theft, it just goes to the heart of the government at a time we need the government to be working for us to get us out of a hole with COVID. [But instead] we’ve got a government, again, focused on itself.”

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton rejected the assertion the force had taken a soft approach in its dealings with alleged state government corruption, including the so-called red shirts affair.

Labor repaid money after the ombudsman made adverse findings on that matter, but the police investigation was closed for lack of evidence after several Victorian Labor Party members would not give interviews.

“To say that there’s been any preferential treatment there, I completely disagree with that,” Patton told 3AW. “We’ve had a referral in respect to the red shirts, which were assessed, and we investigated fully, and we’ve assessed that, and that’s concluded.”

While the draft IBAC report could not definitely conclude that all Labor’s factions had engaged in the same wrongdoing as Somyurek’s Moderate Labor, the evidence it had gathered made it “highly likely the misuse of publicly funded staff” and “employment of family members and factional allies for party or factional purposes and nepotism has occurred for a much longer period and is much more widespread [across Labor] than Moderate Labor”.

Cut through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.